"Detective, you are going to enjoy this." He grabbed a fistful of her hair. She screamed in pain. "You know you will."
He laughed and she heard his pants being unzipped.
Kate screamed and tried to wriggle away from him.
BANG.
Damien screamed, and flung himself off Kate.
"NYPD. Freeze!"
Kate saw six blurry figures run from all sides of her. Weapons drawn, they surrounded Damien. With all the strength she had left, she lifted her head to look at Damien.
Blood poured through his hand that was clasped around his shoulder. Any trace of the laughter, of the grins, of the cockiness was gone and replaced with pain and shock.
A head appeared over the top of her. Her eyes couldn't make out who it was.
"Kate? Kate? You're okay. You're safe. We're going to get you to the hospital."
Although she couldn't see the face, she recognised the deep, soothing voice of Nick Amaro. She didn't know what to do. She was weak, but she wanted to get up. She wanted to say something to Nick, but her lips didn't want to move. She wanted to pass out, but her mind was too alert to allow her.
Instead, all the emotions pressed against her, and she began to cry.
Rafael stood outside of the half-finished building behind the SWAT vehicles. He wasn't allowed closer until they called all clear. Hands buried in his coat pockets, he paced along the footpath. His mind ran with the possibilities of what could be happening, or what had already happened. A man like Bradley had nothing to lose. He could kill her just like that.
BANG.
A shot went off. Rafael's head snapped up. His eyes darted all over the building for a sign of anything.
He ran as close as he could to the building, before he was held back by a uniformed officer. Over the officers radio, he heard an urgent Carisi yell "Send two stretchers up here, now!"
"I've got to get up there!" Rafael pushed against the officers grip.
"Sir, I am under direct orders from Sergeant Benson and SWAT. You cannot go in there."
Frustration surging through him, Rafael snatched his arm away from the officer. Four ambulance officers with two stretchers powered up into the building.
The first stretcher came back out a moment later. Rafael saw Damien Bradley, bleeding and groaning on it. Somewhere inside of him, he prayed that that man would die a long, painful death. He weaved his head backwards and forwards looking for the emergence of the second stretcher.
It finally came. On it lay Kate wrapped in a blanket. He didn't even get a chance to see her properly before she was put into another ambulance and rushed to the hospital.
Olivia ran out of the building and over to Rafael. "She's okay." Olivia said, wiping sweat from her forehead. "She pretty beaten up, but she's alive."
Rafael let out the longest breath and rubbed his eyes. He struggled to compose himself, but he had to switch into lawyer mode. "Get in there and get this scene completely photographed and documented. I don't want Bradley getting out of this again."
The white halls and tiles of the hospital were the only sights the team had seen for three hours. Amanda had brought coffee and food. The coffee was generously accepted, but the food remained untouched. Rafael sat twirling the ring on his finger. It was a black song engraved with a crucifix. He hadn't said a prayer since he attended mass with his mother at Easter. But in that moment, he found himself praying again and again.
A doctor appeared next to them. "Sergeant Benson?"
Benson jumped from her seat. "Yes?"
The rest of the team quickly surrounded the doctor.
"Doctor Gray." She shook each of their hands, then looked down at the clip board she held. "Detective Walker is stable for now."
There was a collective sigh of relief.
"Can we see her?" asked Nick.
The doctor looked down. "Well, she was suspended upside down for over three hours. The blood pooled in the brain during this time, causing her brain to swell."
Rafael's heart clenched. "What does that mean?"
"There's no damage to her brain as of yet, but if the swelling doesn't go down, we could be facing something serious. I've had to put her into a medically induced coma."
"Oh god," Olivia exclaimed. "For how long?"
"I really can't say. Sometimes swelling can go down in a day, sometimes two weeks."
Two weeks without Kate. Rafael could feel himself missing her already.
"Have you notified her next of kin?" It may have sounded cold to the others, but talking like a cold, level-headed lawyer stopped Rafael from showing his feelings for her.
"Her father has passed away, and when we notified her mother she…" The doctor cleared her throat. "She said she wanted nothing to do with her."
Rafael frowned.
"She never talked much about her family," added Nick.
"You can see her if you wish?" Doctor Gray suggested.
The team followed the doctor through the halls, out of the Emergency Ward and into the long halls of the rest of the hospital. She paused in front of Room 292.
"I'll leave you all," she said, opening the door.
As each of them entered, they each took in the broken and damaged body that lay on the bed in front of them.
Olivia was the first to see her. A gasp escaped her lips. Nick came in next and had to look down. Finn followed, and uttered an "Oh, darlin'" as he took in the sight of her.
Rafael finally got through the door and stopped dead in his tracks. Kate didn't even look like herself. Her tanned skin was a deathly white. Black bruises covered her wrists and ankles. IV's ran from both wrists, and cords connected her body to a heart monitor. Rafael couldn't do anything but stare.
Carisi and Rollins were last into the room. Carisi's face dropped into a pained frown, while Amanda closed her eyes.
Nick sat down on the seat next to the bed and gripped Kate's lifeless hand. "You're so strong Kate. You're going to pull through this."
Rafael wanted to grasp her hand or her shoulder. Just touch her to let himself know that she was alive, but he was so hesitant. He didn't want to hurt her.
Carisi leaned on the foot of the bed. "We're all here, Kate."
Olivia leaned over Kate. "Kate, you did so well. You are the bravest detective I've ever had." She sighed and nodded slowly. "You got him, Kate. There's no way that he can get out of this one. We've arrested him again. He's never going to be free again."
The emotional speech was interrupted by a chime coming from Nick's pocket. He grabbed his phone and answered it. "Amaro. Yep. Got it. Coming now." He hung up the phone. "The CSI finally finished processing the scene and released all the evidence. They said there's something we all need to see."
The entire team, including Barba, sat around a television in Olivia's office. The CSI team had warned them that it was probably best not to play the video on the squad room TV.
They were all horrified by what they were witnessing: their colleague, their friend, strung up like an animal in her underwear being taunted.
"Tell me, what are you hiding from your team?" Damien Bradley asked on the video.
"I am…I was beaten when I was younger." Rafael's chest tightened at Kate's admission. He could see the pain on her face. He felt a resurgence of the burning anger he felt towards his father rise inside of him. The intensity and pace at which the fury rose shocked Rafael. He had pushed and buried his childhood so deep that he was sure it would not affect him anymore. He was wrong.
"Who hit you?"
"My brother."
They watched as Kate wriggled around in distress, describing what her brother had done to her. The team needed to watch this video for the investigation, but every single one of them felt sick to the stomach in doing so.
"How did you get away from him?" Damien asked her.
"I didn't!"
They watched as Kate wailed. Nick hung his head. Amanda had to take a deep breath. All of them had seen horrific things in their times, but watching their friend being tortured like this was on a new level.
"I killed him! He came after me and mother with a gun and I stabbed him!"
All of them looked to the screen in shock. Had they heard that right? They watched as Kate screamed at her admission. They listened in shock the details of her mother disowning her and her name change.
"When I was in college, I started having…flashbacks…panic attacks. Every time I saw that someone had been stabbed on the news, I couldn't even move… I went to a public mental health office, then to a psychiatrist, and was diagnosed with PTSD."
Olivia shook her head and turned the video off. "That's enough. We've got the transcripts. You can all read them."
"Is what she said true?" asked Carisi.
Olivia sighed. "I don't know. It's in her past. It's not in her record and it's going to stay that way for now."
Carisi began typing on his small tablet.
"Will she get kicked off the force?" Amaro asked, his face covered in sadness and concern.
"That's not my decision. But she didn't lie when applying and she passed her psych eval, so according to policy, she's a sound cop."
"It's true." Carisi announced. "1994. A Robert Wilkonson was killed by his sister, Kate Wilkonson in self-defence." Carisi held up his tablet for the team to see. On the screen was a newspaper article with the school pictures of both Robert and Kate. "She really did change her name." He turned the screen back around and began flicking through the article.
Olivia pulled the tablet out of his hands. "Leave it for now, Carisi."
"So that's why Bradley targeted her?" Amanda asked. "The PTSD?"
"He likes damaged goods," Nick said.
"Kate is not damaged goods, Amaro." Rafael hissed.
The team all stared at him. It was the first thing he had said since they walked into the room.
With all his might, he forced himself into lawyer mode. "Bradley knows he's going down for this." He stood and buttoned his jacket. "It's just a matter of whether he wants to abandon ship or go down with his boat."
"You're going to offer him a plea?" Carisi asked.
"The only plea I want to hear about is Bradley's plea for mercy as we lock him up for life." With that, Barba walked out of the room. He strode to the men's bathroom and locked himself in the stall. He had to take a moment. The images of a woman he cared so much for being in that much pain swirled in his brain. He slammed his fist against the stall.